The second is DC Comics Super Heroines: 100 Greatest Moments. The publisher was kind enough to send me a copy, and while I’m thrilled about the idea of the content, seeing so many accomplished heroes in one place, I found the format didn’t work for me.

Too often, the text explanations of the significance of the events are separated from the comic art showing the moments by a page or more, which made for a lot of flipping back and forth. If the character, such as Supergirl, has multiple moments, all the pages showing them are lumped together, one after another, regardless of how far apart in time they originally appeared, making for a patchy, undifferentiated read. Some moments are illustrated by the issue’s cover instead of the actual sequential art showing the moment.

Each character’s section starts with a brief description of their history, which is helpful, but they’re lacking reference, for the most part. Only some have the names of who invented the character, and most lack mention of what comics the character appeared in. Often, the only time creator (writer or artist) names appear is in a small caption underneath an art page, and the spot art character illustrations aren’t credited at all.

The alphabetical arrangement means that we’re reading about Amethyst and Artemis (the substitute Wonder Woman from the 90s) before we cover the big names, like Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, Huntress, and Batgirl.

I understand, as a licensed DC publication, the company likely wanted more emphasis on their universe than the creators, but as someone more interested in real-world history than the fictional stories (which change so quickly these days), this doesn’t seem like the right book for me. Gotta love, though, seeing Jesse Quick, Bumblebee, Liberty Belle, Mera, Saturn Girl, Scandal and Knockout (part of “comics’ first polyamorous marriage”), Sue Dibny, Vixen, and Ma Hunkel, to name a few, in among the better-known characters.